\ l \\\ "There I go-still writing 'B. C. ' on my checks. " . that going into a shelter for the home- less-there had to be one somewhere in town, probably at the south end, where lived immigrants, undocumented aliens, and the working poor-that, too, was out of the question. And never mind principles: even the homeless have names, histories, and inquisitive social workers. If I played dumb, went mute, how could I not end up commit- ted somewhere? Better to freeze to death. As I understood it, it wasn't half bad-you simply grew warm and fell asleep. Another option, one not prohibited by any vows I had taken, was to find shelter in Dr. Sondervan's house. While it is true that I did more than once sneak into the basement dorm to use the bath- room, and on occasion I even risked a shower with Herbert and Emily guard- ing the door, and while another time, late at night, they led me into the dark kitchen, whose antiseptic smell was an offense to my nostrils, and whose ticking clock suggested discipline verging on tyranny, so that it was almost as a cour- tesy to them that I accepted an apple and a chicken leg, I could not reasonably ex- 72 THE NEW YORKER, JANUARY 14, 2008 . pect in this odd doctor's sanitarium to go unnoticed as an overnight guest. And so, as I pondered and worried and accomplished nothing, the winter blew in with a wild snow that scoured the streets and roared through my mea- gre shelter like the vengeful God of the Old Testament. Of course, I was not trapped; I just felt as if I were. I thought what a bril- liant evolutionary expedient was hiber- nation, and ifbears and hedgehogs and bats had managed to work it into their repertoire why hadn't we? Actually, as the snow was blown against the siding of the garage it stuck there, sealing off the cracks, and my ate- lier became a bit cozier, though not in time to keep me from falling ill. I thought I had caught cold when I awoke with eyes watering and a sore throat. But when I tried to get up I felt too weak to stand. I could actually feel the virus hum- ming happily through me. There comes a moment when you have to admit that you're sick. How could I have expected otherwise, as undernourished and poorly prepared for the winter as I was? I had never in my life felt so bad. I must have been running a high fever, because I was out of it half the time. I have an image of two alarmed young re- tards standing in the doorway looking down at me. Perhaps I gave them a pa- thetic wave of my pale, bony hand. And then one of them must have come back that night or another, because I woke up in the small hours with a hot-water bot- tle under my feet. And-this is the most phantasmic impression of all-once I awakened to find Emily in my bed, clothed, with her arms and legs wrapped around me as if to provide warmth. At the same time, though, she was pressing her pelvis rhythmically against my hip and cooing something and kissing my bearded cheeks. A fter several days, I found myself still alive. I got up from my poor pallet and did not collapse. I was a bit weak but steady on my feet and clear- headed. If one can feel physically chas- tened, as if having been scrubbed down to another skin, that's what I felt. I stud- ied myself in the antique silver hand mirror: what a thin, gaunt fellow I had become, though with eyes bright with intelligence. I decided that I had passed through some crisis that was more a test of spirit than a lousy virus. I felt good. Tall and lean and limber. There was a stale sandwich and a glass of frozen milk beside my bed. The jars that served as my urinals were empty and aligned in a gleaming row. Sun came through the bull's-eye window and cast an oblong rainbowed image of itself on the attic floor. Wrapping my coat around me, I went outside into the cold pure air of the winter morning, careful not to slip on the icy steps. The bamboo copse was encased in clear ice. I looked for my friends, for some sign of them, but there was not even one track in the snow cov- ering Sondervan's back yard. I saw no smoke from the chimney, no lights at the back basement door that had always burned there, day and night. So they were gone, the whole crew of them, patients, staff Do you take a houseful of mentally problematic people for a Christmas vacation? Or had the neigh- bors finally got a court to rule against Sondervan's little sanitarium? And the doctor? Had he fled to his practice in the city? I didn't know.